


Planets Crashing to Dust

by ssa_archivist



Category: Smallville
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-12-30
Updated: 2001-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-01 05:58:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/352798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssa_archivist/pseuds/ssa_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are such a liar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Planets Crashing to Dust

## Planets Crashing to Dust

by Brighid

[]()

* * *

Disclaimer: Not mine. Not making money. Damn it. 

This is the third, Totally Unrelated Beautiful Garbage vignette. For Lucy, and dine (come over, the lake's frozen solid and we're having a corn roast!) and Beth. 

Planets Crashing to Dust  
(Cup of Coffee)  
by Brighid 

Some days, you are more Lionel Luthor's son than even you want to admit. You can feel him in the twists and coils of your DNA, the bottomless echo in the pit of your gut, the darkest corners of your cold, stunted heart. Deny it all you want, but beneath your smile the serpent lurks. 

You hold out apples, organic ones even, and you never tell what the cost is until after that first, dizzying bite. 

In all fairness, though, you probably didn't realize the cost yourself. 

Now he's watching you with those eyes, the pupils wide and liquid, like falling into night itself, and you sip your coffee and you pretend not to notice how pale he's gone, how he trembles like the night you found him crucified in the cornfield and you tell him that maybe you're a little ... bored? of schoolboy crushes and doesn't Lana look pretty sitting over there and isn't that what good little farm boys are supposed to be doing with their spare time, anyway? 

You smile, and your smile is _calculatingly_ kind, just the right mixture of amusement and pity and fondness and you throw down too many bills for what either of you have ordered, reminding him once again of _what_ you are and why this is a bad idea and reminding him that you are _exactly_ what his father warned him about, even if old Jonathan didn't know exactly what sort of threat you presented. 

And then you pat his head, like you would a purebred bitch's or a little child's or a lover who you're still fond of but has outlasted his time in your affections. 

And then you leave, even if something inside of you starts to tear, even if something starts to bleed. 

And you do not look back. 

And you do not look back. 

)0( 

Days pass into weeks and you work damn hard, late into the night, because when you sleep you dream and you dream of him and you wake up with a hole in your belly because you haven't got a heart, goddamnit, haven't got a heart, so you work until you're too exhausted to dream. 

There was a time when you might have gotten drunk, dropped or sniffed or snorted something, but this is about control. It's all about control and there are no guarantees you'd forget, you'd slip into oblivion. More likely to end up drunk and weeping in the Kent's yard, giving Pa Kent the excuse he's been longing for to blow the dust off the family shotgun. 

Or maybe he'd just beat you to death with his bare hands. 

And you find the idea has some appeal, so you work harder, and later, until you drop into a sleep that should be dreamless but isn't, because you can feel him moving through the room, a wind in the door, a linger of scent, of taste spread thin on the air. Sometimes, sometimes he is so real you are sure you could just open your eyes and he would be _there_ , hovering over you. You reach out, blind, trace the soft, papery lids of his eyes, the velvet curve of his mouth from memory, pretend you feel the stir of his breath, the soft blessing of his kiss. 

And so you don't sleep and you work harder and you go a little mad, because you see him, you always see him, a ghost in the corner of your vision, a whisper of heat in your belly (because Luthor's don't _have_ fucking _hearts_ ) and he looks paler and thinner but that's you, that's you. A ghost in your own castle, a shadow in your own halls. 

But you can't go back. 

You can't go back. 

)0( 

Days and nights blend together, blur together. You drink bad coffee at the coffee shop and watch him not watching you, watch him touch her dark hair, two dark heads bent together and finally something just _snaps_ , cracks and splits like frozen lakes or brittle marble and you get up and you don't care that you are out of control, a Luthor making a fool of himself. 

Files fall everywhere, coffee spills and you are _running_ out the damned door and in your car and you are driving, driving like you can outrun this, _this_ alien coil and serpentine twist that twines and curls in you more damningly than Lionel's genes, than Lionel's lessons. 

Suddenly, you realize it was never about apples, it was an older fruit by far, and you are bound here and you will never, ever be free of this place, of him. Never free, never free ... and the car spins and skids and you are flying and maybe, maybe you can be free at that... 

and then a lurch and a shudder and he's _there_ , he's _right_ there, hands an inch deep in your hood and he looks like the painting of Saint Michael that Lionel keeps in his office, anger and fear and a terrible, awful love at war in his face, transforming it from boy to man. He comes around, tears the door off like it's tissue, pulls you out and lifts you high, a lost puppy, a child weeping, a lover ... 

"What the _fuck_ ," and the word is wrong and utterly beautiful in his mouth, "do you think you're doing?" 

And you think, let me go, let me go, I *can't* do this, I *can't* be this, I will betray you, I will destroy you ... 

He bows his head against yours, breath mixing with yours until you're gasping in great lungfuls of him, and he smiles and calls you a liar and you think he _finally_ understands, until his smile touches the curve of your neck, the hollow of your throat, and he adds, "Mostly to yourself, though." And then he kisses you, hard and hot and angry and infinitely tender. 

Tomorrow, you will remember to ask how he outran your car, how he tore the door off, how the hell he could possibly love a Luthor, even as poor an excuse for one as you are... 

but right now your hands are lost in his hair, in the planes of his back and you are gasping in great lungfuls of him and you are shuddering in time to the pulse of your blood because you've found you've a heart, after all. It just needed him. 

Needed a reason to beat. 

To finally start to beat. 

)0( 

End 


End file.
